20 Competitors Announced in 2026 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition

October 30, 2025, 9:56 AM · On Thursday the Elevar Foundation announced 20 violinists who were selected to participate in the Preliminary Round of the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition (EOIVC), which will take place January 4 through January 18, 2026, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

They are:

Sameer Agrawal, 20, of the United States
I-Hao Cheng, 27, of Taiwan
Sophie Hing Fei Leung, 18, of Hong Kong
Xiang Han, 25, of China
Yiyang Hou, 21, of China
Alena Hove, 26, of the United States/Japan
Julia Jones, 21, of the United States
Wenqi Ke, 27, of China
Youjin Lee, 30, of South Korea
Youngjoo Lee, 26, of South Korea
Hyun Jae Lim, 27, of South Korea
Maria Lundina, 25, of Israel/Russia
Sophi Rochlin, 24, of of Israel
Zixuan Shen, 23, of China
Kristóf Tóth, 25, of Hungary
Julia-Xiaozhuo Wang, 18, of Austria/China
Dindin Jingyi Wang, 20, of China
Ruiyi Wang, 23, of China
Wendi Wang, 27, of China
Zhixin Zhang, 25, of China/Switzerland

Alternates:
Sung Chi Chang, 24, of Taiwan
Zixiang Lin, 26, of China
Jinyoung Yoon, 27, of South Korea

The 20 Preliminary Round participants were selected from more than 70 applicants representing 20 countries. They were chosen in a Qualifying Round held via online submission from May through September, adjudicated by violinists Jennifer Frautschi, Lucia Lin, and Arnaud Sussmann. The participants range in age from 18 to 30 and represent 11 countries: Austria, China, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United States.

The EOIVC 2026 will award more than $175,000 in prizes to the Finalists, including cash prizes, instruments and national and international concert engagements.

The jury for EOIVC 2026, selected by Elmar Oliveira, will include Chairman Andrés Cárdenes, Ilya Kaler, Ida Kavafian, Irina Muresanu, Philip Setzer, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, and Kyoko Takezawa, with Elizabeth Pitcairn in reserve as an alternate judge.

All Rounds will be live streamed by the Violin Channel and the EOIVC’s YouTube Channel. Find a schedule of the events here.

Founded by and named after the American violinist Elmar Oliveira in 2016, the Elevar Foundation holds the EOIVC every three years at Lynn Conservatory of Music, where Oliveira was a Distinguished Artist-in-Residence until his retirement in 2023. Past winners of the EOIVC include Hina Khuong-Huu (2023), Julian Rhee (2020) and Sirena Huang (2017).

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20 Competitors Announced in 2026 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition

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